8 ms·

I Went from Grad School to Prison

143 points by theoutlander 12y ago

guard-of-terra 12y ago
Someone should become dead for this.
auvrw 12y ago
the grad school -> prison movement isn't new.. i recall a friend who, as far as i know, went from a ritzy grad school to jail based on some fairly radical eco-"terrorism".... incarceration is a really scary thing, and there's a gamut of types there. i have a feeling that this was an experience for the article's author for sure, but, although it may be a platitute, i feel as though i ought to say, "it could be worse."
mabbo 12y ago
What does society gain from a prison like that? Imagine a person spends 10 years in that situation, and gets out, what the hell are they supposed to do now? They have no job skills, no life skills, they're psychologically damaged. The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad', it's high because we take people in bad situations, and break them further. We take someone almost-functional, and make them completely disfunctional. And anyone who disagrees with this model isn't "tough on crime".
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- themartorana 12y ago
  Money, mostly. There is so much money in sending someone to prison it's absurd. Sure, it costs the taxpayers money, but we're always trying to transfer money from the lower and middle class up the chain. And that's when it's on the up-and-up. Half the time it's horribly corrupt[0]. Although, there's always oppression. Occupy saw all kinds of police abuses, which transferred to these judicial abuses. Sure, this one woman has a voice, but she also knows her freedoms are at the whims of others, no matter the evidence (not allowed in court) in her favor. [0] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- a3n 12y ago
  > What does society gain from a prison like that? No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society? Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense. Think about that as you drive by a speed trap, that the police and city undoubtedly portray as a safety operation, but where the cops hide themselves because they're not trying to discourage speeding, they're trying to collect taxes. Think about that when you see various police organizations stating their opposition to legalizing marijuana. Is their objection that it may promote other, still illegal drugs, or that it would reduce LEO job opportunities? Their only proper stance on the issue, as LEO organizations, is to enforce the laws that society tells them to. Think about that as an apparently overzealous prosecutor bullies a plea bargain out of someone with the threat of life in prison. She's not overzealous, she doesn't care about society; the victim/defendant is merely a line on her resume. When a prosecutor's job performance depends on convictions (rather than truth), then she's going to maximize convictions. Think about that as you, just a normal citizen who is no threat to anyone, are monitored, threatened and controlled by unconstitutional surveillance and police tools that are supposedly intended for, you know, actual terrorists threats.
  - archgoon 12y ago
    > Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense. Then why is it that other places in the world, such as Norway, prisons are not like American prisons? You're claiming that the state in America is simply an outcome of universal properties of Government, but this outcome is not universal. You can't just flippantly say "Things are bad 'cause Gubmint'", when it's clear that other places have overcome these challenges.
    - a3n 12y ago
      I didn't say it's universal, and Norway is apparently a place where reason wins more than America. They are also differently structured governments and societies, and the people have different formative experiences. We are not uniform, and no outcome is inevitable. The way things are in America are probably more likely in America than elsewhere because of our unique shared myths and the wieldability of government by evil people.
- leephillips 12y ago
  "The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad'" How do you know this? Certainly there are different kinds of people who do crimes for different reasons. Some people are in fact "bad" and will keep doing bad things, and the only way to protect the rest of us from their crimes is to keep them locked up, kill them, or banish them to distant lands. For others, incarceration is counterproductive and might lead to a higher likelihood of them committing more crimes after they are released. And incarceration for anyone under the conditions prevailing in some US prisons and jails is insupportable. But some kind of humane incarceration for people who are compelled to continue offending, until one day we learn to fix these people, seems unavoidable.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - noir_lord 12y ago
    because many other developed countries have both lower crime rates and lower rates of re-offense. America incarcerates more of it's people per capita than any other country, more than North Korea, more than South Africa and more than Russia, indeed you incarcerate 7 times more than the European average per captita. reoffender rates are similarly awful.
- yodsanklai 12y ago
  Most people (a vast majority?) think people should pay for their crimes, and also don't want to see their tax money used for anything that could benefit to inmates. I'm actually surprised that it's not even worse than this.
  - ivanca 12y ago
    "Pay for their crimes" is extremely vague, if you steal a cigarette should you go to jail? Most people would say "no, just give him a fine". But it has cost 300 billons on tax dollars to capture, convict, and jail the 2 million people that lives in American prisons, which is 25% of the world prisoners, mostly because there is harsh punishments for soft crimes (drugs, minor robbery, etc) http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpayers-us-prison-system-run-amok/ http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpay...
  - dobbsbob 12y ago
    It is in some states, like Texas. They do forced labor outside (hoe squad), and none of the buildings are air conditioned so the inmates and guards go bezerk in the 40deg C heat. Texas tribune keeps a list of inmates and almost everybody is in their for some petty drug crime.
    - seandhi 12y ago
      Do you have a source for this? I have a good friend serving time in TDC, and his experience has been nothing like this. He's gone to school to get his associates degree for drafting, and he has a job - because he chose to have one - working in the commissary. RE: Air condition - you're right. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_cid.html#air http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_cid.html#air
      - dobbsbob 12y ago
        TDCJ inmates are not allowed income so he must not get paid at the commissary, sure he's not in federal prison in TX? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/teas-prisons-international-human-rights-standard-violations http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/teas-prisons-in... http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/justice/texas-prison-heat-lawsuit/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/justice/texas-prison-heat-laws... http://www.insideprison.com/prison_stories.asp?story_id=751 http://www.insideprison.com/prison_stories.asp?story_id=751 http://www.utexas.edu/know/2014/06/26/summer-heat-kills-inmates-in-prisons-and-that-needs-to-change/ http://www.utexas.edu/know/2014/06/26/summer-heat-kills-inma...
- verroq 12y ago
  Imagine you are HR (or hiring for your start up). Would you take a chance on your company on somebody that has been proven to fail (even if only once)? Would to take a chance on your company, your bottom line, your livelihood on this person? There's also a line of fully qualified people that hasn't failed before.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    Did you read the article? I'm trying to understand the mindset that would think of what she experienced as "failure". Can you help me? What did she fail at?
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    Failed at what? Would you hire someone who was divorced?
    - newaccountfool 12y ago
      "You can't even work out some social squabbles with your wife, she left you for your neighbor. Christ How the Fk is a jackass like you meant to code a suggestion algorithm if you can't keep that in check" You made a very good point.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    You got downvotes but you accurately voice society's discrimination. People with criminal sentences find it harder to get jobs, especially if they've been in prison. I guess the downvotes are from people who recognise that discrimination and who would work to counter in when they employ people.
- smutticus 12y ago
  Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor-and-taxpayer-dollars/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor... More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/ http://www.unicor.gov/ You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/ http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/
- joshuaheard 12y ago
  From law school I learned the the purposes of prison, the "three Rs": Removal from society; Retribution for the crime committed; Rehabilitation from their criminal behavior. How it works in practice is a different story, however.
- zo1 12y ago
  Perhaps people view prisons as a mode of punishment, rather than one of rehabilitation. It really is a vicious cycle, and as far as most of whichever society follows the "4 years of hell for an eye", it won't change.
transfire 12y ago
One day a civilized nation will look back on America prisons as we now look back on the Bastille.
- pedrosorio 12y ago
  You don't need to wait for the future: http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/ http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-s...
digitalengineer 12y ago
"... And the right to a fair trial...' Yeah right...
appleflaxen 12y ago
prisons in the US are unconscionable. the abuse by guards, the prevalence of prison rape (by an HIV-positive inmate, no less), the capricious behavior by the staff. It is a shameful system.
ithought 12y ago
I'll agree not to charge you with a felony and potentially lock in you in cage if you agree not to have a third party examine the facts of this case, and instead plead to a misdemeanor and pay a fine. Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? I realize it's necessarily in some situations but the result is you are never not guilty of some crime. The prosecution virtually never loses. Truth and justice are nowhere to be found.
- dobbsbob 12y ago
  Since being a prosecutor is always a stepping stone to higher public office this is unlikely to change. Jurors can nullify laws however they are never told of that option http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26jury.html?_r=2&hp& http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26jury.html?_r=2&...
- dunmalg 12y ago
  >Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? Prohibit prosecutors from going to trial with charges any higher than they offered in the plea deal. If they offer to (say) let you plead to only misdemeanor drug possession, then they shouldn't be allowed to then prosecute for felony drug possession, resisting arrest, plus anything else they can think of simply because you dared to ask for a jury trial. Sentencing can still be somewhat variable, which would offer an actual incentive to those that know they're caught-holding-the-bag guilty, but would not be such a ruinously life destroying difference that it would frighten the innocent into taking the pllea when they did nothing wrong. The argument against plea bargain reform from prosecutors is always along the lines of "the courts could never handle all those cases, so we have to discourage jury trials as best we can", and frankly, that line of reasoning is bullshit. If there aren't enough resources to offer a jury trial to every offender, then I say we have a crisis of constitutional proportions, and dealing with it by gaming the system to force people to forego their rights simply to improve efficiency is a far more evil thing than most of the crimes people plead to.
nnq 12y ago
Name one important person who ended up in jail for more-or-less-violent protesting, and ended up having this as a "self transforming" experience. I can name at least one... Adolf Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler) ...and I think Mr. Joseph Stalin followed a similar career path, though I know less about the details (but here's a cute mugshot of him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin#mediaviewer/File:Stalin%27s_Mug_Shot.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin#med... ) So, here you go: Q: How do you severely radicalize a random semi-moderate non-violent protester? A: Send him/her to jail. Thankfully this girl kept a cool head and drew a sane interpretation from it, but seriously, what are you Americans trying to do, 'cook up' the next generation of world-wrecking monsters in some insane social-engineering experiment?!
- virtuabhi 12y ago
  Add Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ('Founder', ISIS) to the list. PhD, arrested in 2005 [1]. Many 'leaders' of ISIS are alumni of Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib. [1] http://abc7chicago.com/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dangerous-leader-of-isis/248741/ http://abc7chicago.com/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-...
- jeffdavis 12y ago
  She was convicted of a violent offense. Are you disputing the verdict or the punishment?
  - TophWells 12y ago
    The punishment, from the sound of it.
    - jeffdavis 12y ago
      OK, how does the punishment for hitting a police officer in the US compare to other countries?
      - 12y ago
mcenedella 12y ago
Ms. McMillan was convicted, unanimously, by a jury of her peers. The video of her assault on the police officer is widely available and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=devvY1cCVFE&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdevvY1cCVFE&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=devvY1cCVFE&oref=https%3A%2F... You can draw your own conclusions, but what I see is somebody preparing, consciously, to use the force of slamming their elbow into a police officer's face in order to escape from that officer. Perhaps you disagree with a lot of things -- police militarization, incarceration rates in this country, unequal outcomes and opportunities based on socioeconomic factors. But I don't see how a fair-minded person can agree that we ought to go around solving our problems by elbowing officers of the law in the eyeball: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/nyregion/officer-testifies-about-encounter-with-occupy-wall-street-protester.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/nyregion/officer-testifies... The woman in this case has repeated problems with the law (and the truth) and was arrested again last year for impersonating a lawyer in the subway and interfering with an arrest: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-protester-is-out-of-jail-and-back-in-court.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/nyregion/occupy-wall-stree... As the prosecutors say in that case: "This new arrest mirrors what was on display throughout the trial: the defendant’s utter contempt for the police and the important job they do on a daily basis." Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  Quoting a Youtube comment from the video you posted: "Finally some justice for these ass holes who illegally protest and then claim police brutality all the time. I hope she rots in jail." Is it come kind of totalitarian sect behind this video? Anyway, don't ever want to have anything with you.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Broad swaths of society hate protestors, because they threaten order, and order is something that everyone benefits from. I imagine you have this idea of protestors and revolutionaries leading society to higher states of justice, but more often they just indulge in chaos and violence (e.g. "pro democracy" protests in the middle east turning into support of islamic extremists; pro-republican protests in revolutionary France turning into the Reign of Terror).
S4M 12y ago
> The judge didn't allow evidence that my attorney wanted to show the jury, including a range of videos of the incident. That's the part I find the most shocking in this article. Aren't trials supposed to be fair? What are the kind of evidences that are not allowed to be shown?
- mcenedella 12y ago
  NYTimes: "Jurors were also shown several YouTube videos of Officer Bovell, 35, in March 2012 getting elbowed in his left eye by Ms. McMillan, 25, who is charged with assaulting a police officer. She has maintained that Officer Bovell groped her breast, and that she reacted without knowing he was a police officer. He has denied that he touched her breast. The shaky videos showed Ms. McMillan, a labor organizer, in a bright green dress, jumping back and planting her elbow in Officer Bovell’s face. “She crouched down and lunged backward, elbowing me in the eye,” Officer Bovell said. “It’s like a white light in the face.”" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/officer-stands-by-his-account-of-scuffle-at-occupy-wall-street-protest.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/officer-stands-by...
  - S4M 12y ago
    I don't disagree with what you are saying, but you are not answering my question.
davidf18 12y ago
I live in NYC and I didn't read the entire article, but what stood out for me (beneath the picture) was the $167K per year that each prisoner on Rikers costs NYC! The story of her re-arrest for confronting a police officer in the NYTimes story mentioned in the first comment suggests some underlying contributing psychological issues.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dbg31415 12y ago
I don't love cops, but you don't hit cops. No matter what the cop does, you don't hit the cop. 58 days... she got off with a slap on the wrist.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  Sure you do. A person has the right to defend themselves when assaulted, even if the assaulter happens to be wearing a shitty tin badge and carrying a gun and night-stick. We should not mistake the so-called "authority" of the State as having any legitimacy that can trump our innate rights, of which self-defense is about as fundamental as they get.
ryanmarsh 12y ago
I'm glad she wrote this. In prison you don't just "serve your time". Instead you are abused and neglected, criminally so. Source: My brother went to prison with a 70 year sentence. He was 17.
kukabynd 12y ago
world done fucked up

143 points by theoutlander 12y ago

Someone should become dead for this.

auvrw 12y ago

the grad school -> prison movement isn't new.. i recall a friend who, as far as i know, went from a ritzy grad school to jail based on some fairly radical eco-"terrorism".... incarceration is a really scary thing, and there's a gamut of types there. i have a feeling that this was an experience for the article's author for sure, but, although it may be a platitute, i feel as though i ought to say, "it could be worse."

mabbo 12y ago

What does society gain from a prison like that? Imagine a person spends 10 years in that situation, and gets out, what the hell are they supposed to do now? They have no job skills, no life skills, they're psychologically damaged. The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad', it's high because we take people in bad situations, and break them further. We take someone almost-functional, and make them completely disfunctional. And anyone who disagrees with this model isn't "tough on crime".

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
themartorana 12y ago
Money, mostly. There is so much money in sending someone to prison it's absurd. Sure, it costs the taxpayers money, but we're always trying to transfer money from the lower and middle class up the chain. And that's when it's on the up-and-up. Half the time it's horribly corrupt[0]. Although, there's always oppression. Occupy saw all kinds of police abuses, which transferred to these judicial abuses. Sure, this one woman has a voice, but she also knows her freedoms are at the whims of others, no matter the evidence (not allowed in court) in her favor. [0] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
a3n 12y ago
> What does society gain from a prison like that? No, you have to ask, what does a prison like that gain from society? Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense. Think about that as you drive by a speed trap, that the police and city undoubtedly portray as a safety operation, but where the cops hide themselves because they're not trying to discourage speeding, they're trying to collect taxes. Think about that when you see various police organizations stating their opposition to legalizing marijuana. Is their objection that it may promote other, still illegal drugs, or that it would reduce LEO job opportunities? Their only proper stance on the issue, as LEO organizations, is to enforce the laws that society tells them to. Think about that as an apparently overzealous prosecutor bullies a plea bargain out of someone with the threat of life in prison. She's not overzealous, she doesn't care about society; the victim/defendant is merely a line on her resume. When a prosecutor's job performance depends on convictions (rather than truth), then she's going to maximize convictions. Think about that as you, just a normal citizen who is no threat to anyone, are monitored, threatened and controlled by unconstitutional surveillance and police tools that are supposedly intended for, you know, actual terrorists threats.
- archgoon 12y ago
  > Once you understand that people are merely a resource for government, law enforcement and business, things make more sense. Then why is it that other places in the world, such as Norway, prisons are not like American prisons? You're claiming that the state in America is simply an outcome of universal properties of Government, but this outcome is not universal. You can't just flippantly say "Things are bad 'cause Gubmint'", when it's clear that other places have overcome these challenges.
  - a3n 12y ago
    I didn't say it's universal, and Norway is apparently a place where reason wins more than America. They are also differently structured governments and societies, and the people have different formative experiences. We are not uniform, and no outcome is inevitable. The way things are in America are probably more likely in America than elsewhere because of our unique shared myths and the wieldability of government by evil people.
leephillips 12y ago
"The rate of re-offense isn't high because 'bad people are bad'" How do you know this? Certainly there are different kinds of people who do crimes for different reasons. Some people are in fact "bad" and will keep doing bad things, and the only way to protect the rest of us from their crimes is to keep them locked up, kill them, or banish them to distant lands. For others, incarceration is counterproductive and might lead to a higher likelihood of them committing more crimes after they are released. And incarceration for anyone under the conditions prevailing in some US prisons and jails is insupportable. But some kind of humane incarceration for people who are compelled to continue offending, until one day we learn to fix these people, seems unavoidable.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- noir_lord 12y ago
  because many other developed countries have both lower crime rates and lower rates of re-offense. America incarcerates more of it's people per capita than any other country, more than North Korea, more than South Africa and more than Russia, indeed you incarcerate 7 times more than the European average per captita. reoffender rates are similarly awful.
yodsanklai 12y ago
Most people (a vast majority?) think people should pay for their crimes, and also don't want to see their tax money used for anything that could benefit to inmates. I'm actually surprised that it's not even worse than this.
- ivanca 12y ago
  "Pay for their crimes" is extremely vague, if you steal a cigarette should you go to jail? Most people would say "no, just give him a fine". But it has cost 300 billons on tax dollars to capture, convict, and jail the 2 million people that lives in American prisons, which is 25% of the world prisoners, mostly because there is harsh punishments for soft crimes (drugs, minor robbery, etc) http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpayers-us-prison-system-run-amok/ http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/february/punishing-taxpay...
- dobbsbob 12y ago
  It is in some states, like Texas. They do forced labor outside (hoe squad), and none of the buildings are air conditioned so the inmates and guards go bezerk in the 40deg C heat. Texas tribune keeps a list of inmates and almost everybody is in their for some petty drug crime.
  - seandhi 12y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I have a good friend serving time in TDC, and his experience has been nothing like this. He's gone to school to get his associates degree for drafting, and he has a job - because he chose to have one - working in the commissary. RE: Air condition - you're right. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_cid.html#air http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/faq/faq_cid.html#air
    - dobbsbob 12y ago
      TDCJ inmates are not allowed income so he must not get paid at the commissary, sure he's not in federal prison in TX? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/teas-prisons-international-human-rights-standard-violations http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/teas-prisons-in... http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/justice/texas-prison-heat-lawsuit/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/justice/texas-prison-heat-laws... http://www.insideprison.com/prison_stories.asp?story_id=751 http://www.insideprison.com/prison_stories.asp?story_id=751 http://www.utexas.edu/know/2014/06/26/summer-heat-kills-inmates-in-prisons-and-that-needs-to-change/ http://www.utexas.edu/know/2014/06/26/summer-heat-kills-inma...
verroq 12y ago
Imagine you are HR (or hiring for your start up). Would you take a chance on your company on somebody that has been proven to fail (even if only once)? Would to take a chance on your company, your bottom line, your livelihood on this person? There's also a line of fully qualified people that hasn't failed before.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  Did you read the article? I'm trying to understand the mindset that would think of what she experienced as "failure". Can you help me? What did she fail at?
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  Failed at what? Would you hire someone who was divorced?
  - newaccountfool 12y ago
    "You can't even work out some social squabbles with your wife, she left you for your neighbor. Christ How the Fk is a jackass like you meant to code a suggestion algorithm if you can't keep that in check" You made a very good point.
- DanBC 12y ago
  You got downvotes but you accurately voice society's discrimination. People with criminal sentences find it harder to get jobs, especially if they've been in prison. I guess the downvotes are from people who recognise that discrimination and who would work to counter in when they employ people.
smutticus 12y ago
Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor-and-taxpayer-dollars/ http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor... More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/ The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/ http://www.unicor.gov/ You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/ http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/
joshuaheard 12y ago
From law school I learned the the purposes of prison, the "three Rs": Removal from society; Retribution for the crime committed; Rehabilitation from their criminal behavior. How it works in practice is a different story, however.
zo1 12y ago
Perhaps people view prisons as a mode of punishment, rather than one of rehabilitation. It really is a vicious cycle, and as far as most of whichever society follows the "4 years of hell for an eye", it won't change.

transfire 12y ago

One day a civilized nation will look back on America prisons as we now look back on the Bastille.

pedrosorio 12y ago
You don't need to wait for the future: http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/ http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-s...

digitalengineer 12y ago

"... And the right to a fair trial...' Yeah right...

appleflaxen 12y ago

prisons in the US are unconscionable. the abuse by guards, the prevalence of prison rape (by an HIV-positive inmate, no less), the capricious behavior by the staff. It is a shameful system.

ithought 12y ago

I'll agree not to charge you with a felony and potentially lock in you in cage if you agree not to have a third party examine the facts of this case, and instead plead to a misdemeanor and pay a fine. Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? I realize it's necessarily in some situations but the result is you are never not guilty of some crime. The prosecution virtually never loses. Truth and justice are nowhere to be found.

dobbsbob 12y ago
Since being a prosecutor is always a stepping stone to higher public office this is unlikely to change. Jurors can nullify laws however they are never told of that option http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26jury.html?_r=2&hp& http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26jury.html?_r=2&...
dunmalg 12y ago
>Is there any possible reform for the disaster that is the plea system? Prohibit prosecutors from going to trial with charges any higher than they offered in the plea deal. If they offer to (say) let you plead to only misdemeanor drug possession, then they shouldn't be allowed to then prosecute for felony drug possession, resisting arrest, plus anything else they can think of simply because you dared to ask for a jury trial. Sentencing can still be somewhat variable, which would offer an actual incentive to those that know they're caught-holding-the-bag guilty, but would not be such a ruinously life destroying difference that it would frighten the innocent into taking the pllea when they did nothing wrong. The argument against plea bargain reform from prosecutors is always along the lines of "the courts could never handle all those cases, so we have to discourage jury trials as best we can", and frankly, that line of reasoning is bullshit. If there aren't enough resources to offer a jury trial to every offender, then I say we have a crisis of constitutional proportions, and dealing with it by gaming the system to force people to forego their rights simply to improve efficiency is a far more evil thing than most of the crimes people plead to.

nnq 12y ago

Name one important person who ended up in jail for more-or-less-violent protesting, and ended up having this as a "self transforming" experience. I can name at least one... Adolf Hitler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler) ...and I think Mr. Joseph Stalin followed a similar career path, though I know less about the details (but here's a cute mugshot of him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin#mediaviewer/File:Stalin%27s_Mug_Shot.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Joseph_Stalin#med... ) So, here you go: Q: How do you severely radicalize a random semi-moderate non-violent protester? A: Send him/her to jail. Thankfully this girl kept a cool head and drew a sane interpretation from it, but seriously, what are you Americans trying to do, 'cook up' the next generation of world-wrecking monsters in some insane social-engineering experiment?!

virtuabhi 12y ago
Add Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ('Founder', ISIS) to the list. PhD, arrested in 2005 [1]. Many 'leaders' of ISIS are alumni of Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib. [1] http://abc7chicago.com/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dangerous-leader-of-isis/248741/ http://abc7chicago.com/politics/what-you-need-to-know-about-...
jeffdavis 12y ago
She was convicted of a violent offense. Are you disputing the verdict or the punishment?
- TophWells 12y ago
  The punishment, from the sound of it.
  - jeffdavis 12y ago
    OK, how does the punishment for hitting a police officer in the US compare to other countries?
    - 12y ago

mcenedella 12y ago

Ms. McMillan was convicted, unanimously, by a jury of her peers. The video of her assault on the police officer is widely available and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=devvY1cCVFE&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdevvY1cCVFE&has_verified=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=devvY1cCVFE&oref=https%3A%2F... You can draw your own conclusions, but what I see is somebody preparing, consciously, to use the force of slamming their elbow into a police officer's face in order to escape from that officer. Perhaps you disagree with a lot of things -- police militarization, incarceration rates in this country, unequal outcomes and opportunities based on socioeconomic factors. But I don't see how a fair-minded person can agree that we ought to go around solving our problems by elbowing officers of the law in the eyeball: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/nyregion/officer-testifies-about-encounter-with-occupy-wall-street-protester.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/nyregion/officer-testifies... The woman in this case has repeated problems with the law (and the truth) and was arrested again last year for impersonating a lawyer in the subway and interfering with an arrest: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-protester-is-out-of-jail-and-back-in-court.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/nyregion/occupy-wall-stree... As the prosecutors say in that case: "This new arrest mirrors what was on display throughout the trial: the defendant’s utter contempt for the police and the important job they do on a daily basis." Fact-free magazines like Cosmopolitan may display sympathy for people like Ms. McMillan, but here at HackerNews we should not.

guard-of-terra 12y ago
Quoting a Youtube comment from the video you posted: "Finally some justice for these ass holes who illegally protest and then claim police brutality all the time. I hope she rots in jail." Is it come kind of totalitarian sect behind this video? Anyway, don't ever want to have anything with you.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Broad swaths of society hate protestors, because they threaten order, and order is something that everyone benefits from. I imagine you have this idea of protestors and revolutionaries leading society to higher states of justice, but more often they just indulge in chaos and violence (e.g. "pro democracy" protests in the middle east turning into support of islamic extremists; pro-republican protests in revolutionary France turning into the Reign of Terror).

S4M 12y ago

> The judge didn't allow evidence that my attorney wanted to show the jury, including a range of videos of the incident. That's the part I find the most shocking in this article. Aren't trials supposed to be fair? What are the kind of evidences that are not allowed to be shown?

mcenedella 12y ago
NYTimes: "Jurors were also shown several YouTube videos of Officer Bovell, 35, in March 2012 getting elbowed in his left eye by Ms. McMillan, 25, who is charged with assaulting a police officer. She has maintained that Officer Bovell groped her breast, and that she reacted without knowing he was a police officer. He has denied that he touched her breast. The shaky videos showed Ms. McMillan, a labor organizer, in a bright green dress, jumping back and planting her elbow in Officer Bovell’s face. “She crouched down and lunged backward, elbowing me in the eye,” Officer Bovell said. “It’s like a white light in the face.”" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/officer-stands-by-his-account-of-scuffle-at-occupy-wall-street-protest.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/officer-stands-by...
- S4M 12y ago
  I don't disagree with what you are saying, but you are not answering my question.

davidf18 12y ago

I live in NYC and I didn't read the entire article, but what stood out for me (beneath the picture) was the $167K per year that each prisoner on Rikers costs NYC! The story of her re-arrest for confronting a police officer in the NYTimes story mentioned in the first comment suggests some underlying contributing psychological issues.

deleted 12y ago

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dbg31415 12y ago

I don't love cops, but you don't hit cops. No matter what the cop does, you don't hit the cop. 58 days... she got off with a slap on the wrist.

mindcrime 12y ago
Sure you do. A person has the right to defend themselves when assaulted, even if the assaulter happens to be wearing a shitty tin badge and carrying a gun and night-stick. We should not mistake the so-called "authority" of the State as having any legitimacy that can trump our innate rights, of which self-defense is about as fundamental as they get.

ryanmarsh 12y ago

I'm glad she wrote this. In prison you don't just "serve your time". Instead you are abused and neglected, criminally so. Source: My brother went to prison with a 70 year sentence. He was 17.

kukabynd 12y ago

world done fucked up